


The Prequel Job

by DarkwingDukat (pushingcrazies)



Series: Operation: Cereal [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Multi, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27226015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushingcrazies/pseuds/DarkwingDukat
Summary: What makes a person attractive to another person? Can a person fall in love with multiple people at once? Parker isn't sure, but she's determined to find out.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker, Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Series: Operation: Cereal [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818454
Comments: 13
Kudos: 98





	The Prequel Job

“Is Eliot sexy?”

Hardison choked on his beer. He coughed and hacked for a moment, trying to get his breathing back under control. After years of Parker’s off-the-wall questions and observations, this one really shouldn’t have caught him so off guard. Then again, he wasn’t sure they were at the part of their relationship where they were ready to have a conversation about who he did or didn’t find attractive. He didn’t think Parker, of all people, would freak on him, but he still had his reservations.

“That’s a pretty subjective question,” he replied.

Parker rolled her eyes at him before going back to their previous activity: watching Eliot flirt with a woman at the bar. “So, is he?”

“Well, objectively speaking -”

Parker shot him a squinty look. A dangerous look. The sort of look that stopped a guy dead in his tracks. “You just said it was a subjective question.”

The noise Hardison made was neither dignified nor graceful. “So you’re asking do  _ I _ find Eliot sexy?”

Parker shrugged. “I guess. I just don’t really understand. He can walk up to any woman at the bar and say a few words to them and they want to have sex with him. So he must be sexy, right?”

“Uh, sure, baby. I guess so.”

Parker sighed. “You’re not being very helpful.”

Ouch. Okay, fair. Hardison scooted closer to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “What’s this really about, Parker?”

Parker picked at the label on her beer bottle, avoiding looking at either Hardison or Eliot now. She shrugged. “What makes a person sexy?”

“Again, that’s really subjective. If you’re askin’ what makes Eliot sexy to all those women he flirts with, I couldn’t really tell ya.”

Parker considered this. “You think I’m sexy, right?”

Finally, a question Hardison could answer unequivocally. “Absolutely, yes. You are Princess Leia-level sexy. Emma Frost-level sexy. You make me-”

“Why?”

Hardison faltered once more. He’d never really stopped to examine his feelings for Parker so closely. He’d been attracted to her from day one, but that had mostly been about the superficial stuff: nice body, cute face, commits crimes. As he’d gotten to know her, his attraction had only grown. “You’re smart and confident, and those’re really sexy qualities. Plus you’re really good at what you do, and competence can be a huge turn on for some people.”

“Nate’s all those things, but you don’t want to have sex with him,” Parker said.

Oh god, where was the brain bleach?? “Um, no. That’s - no. He’s like twice my age, Parker,” Hardison stammered. “He’d be like my dad’s age if I had a dad. Ew. Ick. No no no.”

Parker gave him a look like  _ he _ was the one being weird. “Eliot’s smart and confident and competent.”

“Ye-e-es?” Hardison said, drawing out the word, not sure if he liked where this was heading.

“So, do you want to have sex with him?”

Hardison did  _ not _ squeak at that, thank you very much. At least, not very loudly. “No, thanks. I’m not interested in getting beat up.”

Parker cocked her head. “Why would he beat you up?”

Hardison did not have the energy to get into the intricacies of toxic masculinity and homophobia, especially as they related to the southern half of the country. “He just - I don’t know. Do  _ you _ want to have sex with Eliot?” Because honestly? That’s what this conversation seemed to be circling around, and oh, god, that thought made Hardison’s heart twist because of  _ course _ she wanted to have sex with Eliot, who wouldn’t -?

“I don’t think I would say no if he asked,” Parker said after a long moment of speculation. “Just like you.”

“Just like - wait, just like me as in you wouldn’t say no if I asked, or just like me as in I’d have sex with Eliot if  _ he _ asked.?”

Parker frowned, like Hardison was being stupid on purpose. “Both.”

Hardison never understood how she could manage to be so socially oblivious and yet deeply intuitive at the same time. He’d never told anyone he was bisexual before, except a couple of his closest siblings. He’d never even told Nana, though sometimes he suspected she knew. But that was Nana for you - you couldn’t hide anything from her. But, nah. At school, he’d had enough stuff to get beaten up about without adding his sexual identity to the list. And afterwards, it just seemed safer not to say anything. Hardison blew out a long breath and chose to focus on the other implication of what Parker had said. “So, you wouldn’t say no if I asked?”

Parker half turned to give him a long once-over. “Yeah, I think that’d be fine.”

Well, it wasn’t quite ‘God, you’re a sexy beast and I must have you right away,’ but from Parker? It was more than enough to set off a dozen fantasies in Hardison’s head. “Cool. Cool. That’s chill. Yeah, awesome.” He brought his beer to his lips to cut off any more mindless blathering. His eyes fell to Eliot again.

Eliot shot him a cocky grin behind the woman’s back. Looked like he’d managed to score. He was going to take that woman back to his apartment, seduce her, strip her down, make love to her. That thought certainly did nothing to cool Hardison’s desire. If anything, it cranked it up about twenty degrees.

“If he asked,” Hardison said, not meaning to speak but the words tumbling out before he could stop them, “who would you choose?”

Parker blinked at him, nonplussed. “Why would I have to choose?”

Hardison brought his attention fully back to her. “Why-? Because most people don’t like to be two-timed, Parker.”

“Oh.” She looked sad, now. Hardison hated being the one to cause that sadness; his brain begged him to take it back. “I didn’t know I had to choose. I figured - well, you’re pretzels.”

“Yeah…” He knew that, there was no question there. Parker had feelings for him, they’d determined that months ago.

“Eliot’s pretzels, too,” Parker said. “Just a different sort.”

Hardison’s first impulse wasn’t a very good one. He wanted to be jealous. He wanted to tell Parker she couldn’t have feelings for both of them, that’s not how that worked. But he bit back that impulse and mulled over what she was  _ saying _ . “You...have feelings for both of us. But different feelings?”

Parker wiggled her hand side to side. “Same feelings, different shape. You’re like the stick pretzels, all straight and solid. Eliot’s the twisty kind, all complicated knots.”

Hardison would personally argue that Eliot was the straight kind and he was the one slightly bent, but that play on words might go a little over Parker’s head. Besides, she was being completely honest with him. The least he could do was return the favor. “That’s - that’s okay, baby. It’s okay to have feelings for two different people at the same time. Feelings are complicated that way.”

“You think Eliot is pretzels, too, don’t you?”

“I -” Was Eliot pretzels? He was definitely attractive, in a rugged, macho-manly sort of way. The first time Hardison had watched him take down four guards while hardly breaking a sweat had been a capital-E Experience. But Hardison made it a rule not to fall for straight guys. “I mean, in an ideal world where I ain’t gonna get a beatdown for even thinking about the possibility of hooking up with him? Sure. Eliot’s pretzels.”

Parker rolled her eyes. “Why would you get a beatdown?”

“Um, hello? The dude can’t even hug me without getting all ‘no homo’ about it,” Hardison said. “And that’s even on the rare times he lets me hug him at all.”

“Hugs aren’t the only way to tell a person you love them,” Parker said.

Which, okay, fair. Parker wasn’t a big hugger, either. Hardison could dig that. But the question here wasn’t if Eliot loved them. “I know that, baby. I was just sayin’.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay,” Parker smiled at him. “If Eliot ever shows a sign that he’s not gonna beat you up for saying he’s attractive, we get to tell him he’s pretzels.”

Fat chance that’d ever happen, Hardison figured. “Sure, Parker. Absolutely.”

Across the bar, Eliot stood up with his date, helped her into her coat. He glanced back at them and shot them a grin and a thumbs up. Hardison rolled his eyes while Parker waved cheerfully. Eliot placed his hand on the small of the woman’s back and guided her towards the door.

“Hey.” Hardison nudged Parker with his shoulder. “Wanna come over to my place and play some video games?”

Parker wrinkled her nose. “Video games? Wouldn’t you rather ask me over to have sex?”

It was a miracle that Hardison didn’t choke on his own tongue. “I - I - I mean, yeah, but like - I was trying to be a little more suave than that. Y’know, like, invite you over and then put some moves on you.”

“Oh. Huh. Can we try that again?”

“Uh, sure. Hold on.” Hardison took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. “Hey, Parker, d’you wanna come over and play some video games?”

“Okay, I guess,” Parker said, shrugging. She drained the last of her beer.

Well, that cooled Hardison right down. “Y-you guess?”

“Yeah. I’m playing hard-to-get. Is it working?”

Maybe Parker’s more direct approach had been the right one to go with after all, Hardison thought. “Um, yeah, of course, baby. Of course. You ready?” He set down some cash to pay for their drinks.

Parker never brought up Eliot and pretzels in the same sentence after that first time. Hardison had almost managed to forget the conversation ever happened when Eliot went and had that intimate moment with Ian Stevenson, astounding them all, and setting the wheels turning in both Parker and Hardison’s heads.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta, N-Chan on Discord.
> 
> I'm still plugging along in this 'verse, but I tell ya, it can be a struggle some days. I've lost the momentum I built up while writing TAMJ.


End file.
